Skip to footer

Iran's high court dismisses death sentence against American

Iran's supreme court threw out a death sentence Monday against Amir Mirza Hekmati, an Iranian-American convicted of spying by a lower court and sentenced to be executed.

|
REUTERS
Iranian-American Amir Mirza Hekmati, whose death sentence by Iran's Revolutionary Court on the charge of spying for the CIA has been overturned by Iran's supreme court, speaks during a recorded interview in an undisclosed location, in this undated still image taken from video made available to Reuters TV on January 9.
  • By Reuters

| Tehran

Iran's supreme court on Monday dismissed an execution sentence passed by a revolutionary court against an Iranian-American national accused of spying for the CIA, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"The supreme court nullified the execution sentence against Amir Mirza Hekmati and sent it to an affiliate court," said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei without giving further details.

Hekmati, a 28-year-old of Iranian descent born in the state of Arizona, was arrested in December and Iran's Intelligence Ministry accused him of receiving training at U.S. bases in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.

The United States urged Iran to grant Hekmati access to legal counsel and to release him without delay.

Iran's judiciary said Hekmati admitted to having links with the CIA but denied any intention of harming Iran, which has had no relations with the United States since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Mutual antagonism has reigned since.

The State Department has said Iran did not permit diplomats from the Swiss Embassy, which represents U.S. interests in Iran, to see him before or during his trial.

Hekmati graduated from a Michigan high school. His father Ali is a professor at a community college in Flint, Michigan.

Iran, which often accuses its foes of trying to destabilise its Islamic system, said in May it had arrested 30 people on suspicion of spying for the United States and later 15 people were indicted for spying for Washington and Israel.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Iran's high court dismisses death sentence against American
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0305/Iran-s-high-court-dismisses-death-sentence-against-American
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe